Contributed Photo From left, fifth-graders Sam Edwards, Brock Dickelman, Perla Oviedo and Gabe Bohm complete assignments in preparation for their trip to JA Biz Town in Milwaukee this week.
Contributed Photo Fifth-graders Ella Skanadore, left, and Zenarriaye Hewings-Hughes complete assignments in preparation for their trip to JA Biz Town in Milwaukee this week.
Students and teachers from Olga Brener Intermediate School, St. James School and Sacred Heart School are helping run a town this week.
Local fifth-graders, as well as some fourth- and sixth-graders, are filling key roles at JA BizTown on Wednesday and Thursday at the Junior Achievement Kohl’s Education Center in Milwaukee.
Students spend a day operating a bank, restaurant, newspaper, retail store, city hall and 10 other businesses. JA BizTown combines months of in-class learning with a daylong visit to the interactive, simulated town.
“When students arrive at JA BizTown for their day in the lab, they come prepared. They have already spent quite a bit of classroom time getting ready to be the consumers, the workers, the business owners of BizTown,” said Tim Greinert, JA Wisconsin executive director.
Students had to write job applications and interview for the jobs. They might not get their first choice job, but all students leave with a better understanding of a local economy, Greinert said.
Teachers and volunteers also had to prepare for their roles through an online course.
BizTown is a capstone program that pulls in components of the three goals of Junior Achievement: entrepreneurship, work readiness and financial literacy. The educational experience has been funded primarily by a grant from Dollars for Scholars.
Junior Achievement is taught in kindergarten through 12th grade in the Shawano School District. Its programs help prepare young people for the real world by showing them how to generate and manage wealth, how to create jobs to make communities more robust, and how to apply entrepreneurial thinking to the workplace.